1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming system.
2. Description of the Related Art
In an image forming system in which a plurality of image forming apparatuses and a personal computer (PC) are connected via a network, one of the image forming apparatuses can be selected using the PC. In this case, a user can do a wide range selection of image forming apparatuses, which allows the user to easily and quickly select one of the image forming apparatuses.
For example, when a user wishes to immediately print a large number of color images containing a large amount of magenta, the user may wish to easily and quickly search for an image forming apparatus with a high processing speed from among image forming apparatuses having large remaining amounts of magenta toner.
In order to meet this demand, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 1998-317613 discloses a network management device which is configured to read remaining amounts of toner of image forming apparatuses from a database and to display images of remaining-amount indicators in the vicinity of images of the image forming apparatuses displayed on a screen. In this network management device, however, the images of the remaining-amount indicators are displayed in a scattered manner over the screen.
In the techniques described above, therefore, it is difficult for a user to easily and quickly select one of image forming apparatuses on the network.